Day: March 2, 2005

Stowaway Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard

I ordered a Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse for my Dell Axim awhile ago, and they finally arrived today. Installation was relatively painless for a PocketPC peripheral and so far works like a charm.

Some folks have reported problems reconnecting one device when both devices are active, but so far everything’s worked with no problems. Having a mouse really enhances the PocketPC experience and eliminates the number one gripe I and others have with using keyboards with PDAs — having to take our hands off the keyboard to grab a stylus. Using a mouse is much more intuitive.

Pair this combo with something like a Dell X50V, and you’ve got a legitimate laptop replacement machine that can do a wide range of computing activities in an extremely small package (and will have the pathetic battery life of a laptop to boot!)

WTF Did Jada Pinkett Smith Say?

This pathetic story from the Harvard Crimson addresses a controversy at Harvard over a speech that Jada Pinkett Smith gave on Saturday. The article is headlined “Pinkett SmithÂ’s Remarks Debated”, but there’s just one problem — the idiots at the Harvard Crimson never give us a hint, much less a direct quote, as to what Pinkett said.

Pinkett’s crime is — and I’m not making this up — making comments that were “heteronormative.” As far as I can tell, reading between the lines, Pinkett Smith discussed her views on how to maintain long term relationships and forgot to include tips for homosexuals, bisexuals, transgendered, etc., etc., etc.

Margaret Barusch, Harvard student and co-chair of the bi/whatever group at Harvard, tells the Crimson,

I think the comments had a very strong focus for an extended period of time on how to effectively be in a relationship—a heterosexual relationship. I don’t think she meant to be offensive but I just don’t think she was that thoughtful.

Of course we can’t tell if this woman has a point or is just f—ing nuts (I’m betting the latter), because the stupid piece-of-crap student newspaper prints Barsuch’s and others allegations but never anything from Pinkett Smith.

Anyone out there have any idea what Pinkett said that was so damned “heteronormative”?

Update: I would be inclined to view this as a hoax, except the group in question pushes equally nutty ideas (gender-free restrooms to accomodate transgendered individuals to start with), so this story is not out of the realm of possibility.

Source:

Pinkett SmithÂ’s Remarks Debated. The Harvard Crimson, March 2, 2005.

Dave Winer: If All Else Fails, Simply Make Stuff Up

All too typical behavior by Dave Winer today. Blake Ross, the 19-year-old Firefox developer, has received venture capital funding for a venture that so far doesn’t have a public name or business model — no one knows yet exactly what Ross’ company will produce. Which gives Winer plenty of opportunity just to make shit up and try to draw Ross into the battle over the Google Toolbar,

From the Isn’t-It-Totally-Obvious Department

Business 2.0 wonders why Sequoia Capital invested in a startup founded by the 19-year-old who turned Mozilla into Firefox. Isn’t it obvious? Adware. The best place to bake it in is in the browser itself. He who controls the browser gets the money, now that Google has broken the barrier. The ads move from the Web page into the browser, and so does the money. How long before the “content industry” figures this out? All of a sudden the NY Times buyout of About.Com looks like a really bad deal.

Ah, such behavior from someone who complains about every little perceived sleight in stories about him. I guess the standards Dave expects of the major media when reporting about him just don’t apply to Blake Ross.

ConvertLIT – Remove DRM from MS Reader Encrypted E-Books

I’m a huge fan of e-books, but hate the DRM and, unfortunately, its impossible to purchase many of the books I’d like to read except in encrypted, DRM formats.

ConvertLIT and the ConvertLIT GUI solve that problem for any e-book you can buy in MS Reader format. ConvertLIT extracts files from a DRMed MS Reader document where they can then be converted to other formats, like HTML (and once you’ve got it in HTML, you can convert it to pretty much every e-book format I’m aware of).

Excellent. Now I can start buying a lot of e-books I’ve been holding out on, like Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle.

Teaching Kids to Abuse Animals With Whac-A-Mole

Headlined “New Hasbro toy teaches animal cruelty”, someone posted this to AR-News on February 21,

New toy out that teaches kids how to hit animals: it’s called Whac-A-Mole.

One thing you can do is to add your comments to Amazon.com’s customer review
section:

So far, only one activist seems to have taken up the challenge of submitting a negative review, though I’m not quite sure this is what the AR-News poster had in mind (emphasis added),

This toy is not something I want my children playing with. First off, the toy is something that encourages mindless repetition, which does nothing to stimulate a childs imagination and gives the false impression that it’s alright to beat animals over the head with a mallot, or similar object.

Even the editorial review of this toy states, “The inherent cruelty of this game is tempered considerably by how much fun the moles appear to be having while receiving repeated blows to the head with big plastic mallets.” I agree, beating an animal over the head, even if the animal is plastic, is an inevitable portrayal of cruelty, but I wholeheartedly disagree with the rest of the statement. The cruelty of this game is not tempered considerably by how much fun the moles appear to be having while receiving repeated blows to the head with big plastic mallets. Making children think animals enjoy being beaten on the head is not something parents should encourage. How many times has a child jumped out a second story window, trying to fly, after watching a superman movie, or think a person can be run over by a car, blown up, chopped up, etc. then get up and walk away unharmed because they saw it in cartoons? Maybe some children won’t be affected by this toy, in this way, but some may carry it further and hit another child on the head with something harder than a plastic mallet. What if the child hit on the head, were your child? Anyway you look at it, this toy encourages violence on a living being and with all the violence in the world today, parents need to teach children to respect all life.

Teach kids respect for all life, especially the plastic kind.

Anyway, following this reviewer’s advice, I’m probably going to get my kids the Whack-A-Mole but definitely keep them away from the Superman cartoon.